‘Saturday Night Live’ review: The-Rock Obama, Bambi, Starbucks, Pep Boys, more in Dwayne Johnson show (video)

Tonight, “Saturday Night Live” was hosted by Dwayne Johnson, and they wasted no time coming up with something that almost anyone could have predicted: A sketch featuring Jay Pharoah’s Barack Obama turning into The-Rock Obama. It was completely absurd and we could see it coming a mile away, but we have to admit that there were a couple of times that we found ourselves laughing.

To us, the biggest thing we enjoyed about it was that it likely spared us from what would have otherwise been a lame cold open to the show. After all, how many times do we need to see a sketch about political issues played with sometimes only-mediocre impressions? The standout of this sketch in particular was Bobby Moynihan as Ted Cruz. While he was not particularly close to match the Presidential candidate’s voice, we were still entertained by it mostly because of how much energy and craziness he brought to it. This could be a good role for Bobby in months to come.

As for some other sketches during the night…

Dwayne Johnson opening – Yes, it was a pretty lame musical opening about his ability to bring millions and millions of dollars to various franchises. Granted, there were some funny lines in here that tied him to various movies … but him refusing to do a “Smurfs” movie made us chuckle.

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Starbucks / Pep Boys spoof – The “Race Together” movement from Starbucks was ripe for parody, but let’s be honest: Unless you are familiar with the story, you were likely lost with the premise here of Pep Boys mechanics starting to talk about sexuality and gender roles. We knew enough to find the writing funny; if nothing else, it’s the best Starbucks parody in a while.

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Wrestling promos – This was amazing. One of our favorite sketches of the entire season, and it came from such a simple premise: Johnson playing a wrestler who refused to cut an actual promo, and chose instead to reveal traumatizing personal information. If this was not Johnson in the role, we imagine that this would have been catastrophic. The same goes for Moynihan in the other role.

Bambi trailer – Hilarious stuff for the most part. Remaking Bambi with action stars somehow works, as does Taran Killam as a really ridiculous Vin Diesel. One of the more inspired parodies that the show has done over the years.

Two guys and their dates – Did you really think that every sketch before the musical guest would be a win? This ranks as the worst outing of the night, mostly because it was the same joke again and again about obnoxious guys and how they are sexually aroused by benign things their women are doing. Maybe it would have been better ending in thirty seconds.

Indiana Jones parody – What we figured out about Johnson here is that he is brilliant in these lives sketches. Brilliant. He may be the best host we’ve seen in these types of sketches since Justin Timberlake. Brilliant physical comedy in here from start to finish, with the game being that Kate McKinnon’s character, no matter how hard she tries, cannot get the attention she wants from “Dr. Bones” and his sidekick.

Brogaine – Is this the earliest that a Beck Bennett – Kyle Mooney sketch has ever aired on the show? If so, we understand. While it was not as hilarious as seeing Johnson “sucking” Pete Davidson, the line about the fraternity scandal at OU had us howling.

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Weekend Update – A tremendous round at the Update desk. Not every joke between Michael Che and Colin Jost was a winner, but the entire spiel about “The Jinx” and its bizarre opening credits? Certainly on point. Bonus points for the always-welcome return of Olga, and even more points for bringing Kenan Thompson’s Willie back. It’s almost ironic that it took this long for him to have a great character here.

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Cooking – A little bit of a miss here. Perverted criminals to us just never work in satire, and there was not really enough of a setup here beyond that Kenan played one, and Johnson was his probation officer.

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Improv – It was surprising to have at least one live sketch without Johnson, but having another way to spoof Robert Durst was appropriate. We’re not sure we really needed it and it went on too long, but at least it was a step up from the cooking sketch.

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Interrogation – This is another one of those sketches where without Johnson on board, this probably would not have worked at all. However, with him on board as an angry interrogator with an obsession over his partner’s love Jeff, we laughed a few times.

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Circus – Was this the second Good Neighbor sketch of the night? We don’t know the team behind Brogaine, but this was in the more traditional vein of being offbeat, somewhat random, and worthy of a light chuckle or two. Still, Kyle Mooney interviewing people about the circus is not something we’ll remember.

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The first half of tonight’s show was hysterical; it went off the side of the cliff a little in the second half, but there’s no doubt that from start to finish, Johnson put his all into this and gave us some of the funniest sketches we’ve seen in a long time. Here’s to hoping he joins the five-timers club very soon. Grade: A-.

What did you think of this episode? Let us know in the comments, and head over here to read our take on George Ezra as the musical guest! Also, sign up for some other TV news on everything we cover via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)